SCHOOL CLOSURE DAY

Friday 16th August

Dear Families,

I hope you have had a great couple of weeks. It is wonderful to have Miss King back after her short break!

I would like to say a HUGE thank you to our school community for making 'Primary Principal's Day' such a special day for me. Our staff organised a delicious morning tea and beautiful flowers while the students created cards or wrote letters to me.

As I explained at assembly last Friday, I honestly love my role as the Principal of Holy Family School. I feel privileged to be able to support our staff, families and students. Being a Principal provides me with the unique opportunity to make an impact on the lives of people in our school community. I also value being a part of our Parish community which enables me to work with Father Justel to continue to strengthen our community connections and faith knowledge.

Some of the activities during the last couple of weeks have happened to raise awareness within our community on certain social issues with a Catholic lens (Homelessness Awareness Week and Together We Walk In Action). These actions follow the message given to us by Mary MacKillop, never see a need without doing something about it.

Feast of Mary MacKillop

Today we celebrate the Feast of Mary MacKillop (please refer to the Religious Education page for further information).

Mary MacKillop Prayer

God of the Pilgrim,

Mary MacKillop trusted your guidance in her journey of life

and deepened her confidence in your will.

May we renew our trust in your Providence

to lead us to hope as we bring our prayer before you.

May we grow in the fullness of your love and the depth of your mystery.

We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Way, our Truth and our Life.

Amen.

Homlessness Week

Each day this week, some of our classes have been viewing and listening to stories based on the topic of homelessness (Homelessness Action Now). Homelessness does not only refer to people “sleeping rough”, but to all those who do not have a permanent home, and must resort to living in their car, couch surfing, emergency shelters or other temporary accommodation.

To support people in our local community our Year 4 Mini Vinnies Team have planned a fun afternoon this Friday 9th August (4:30-6pm).

This event is not only to raise funds for St Vincent de Paul but for everyone to have fun with a variety of Science hands on activities. Thank you to Avila College for sharing some of their resources with us for this event.

Prep 100 Days at School

I am not sure if you noticed but we had quite a few older students at Holy Family last week!

Some of these students came to school with walking frames, walking sticks, pipes, glasses, ... They had a wonderful day of celebrations with the Prep teachers (Di and Sarah) and support staff (Miriam and Rowena).

Thank you to our families for supporting this fabulous day.

This is one of my favoutire days each year!

International Students

I would like to thank our community (staff and stduents) for welcoming the International students to Holy Family this term.

These students have spent either 2, 3 or 4 weeks at our school and have thoroughly enjoyed the cultural expereince of going to school in Australia.

The fee payment from these families have enabled our school to carry out works that we would have had to put on hold (eg. plumbing, heating).

I can assure families that this opportunity does not impact the education or wellbeing of our enrolled students.

Together We Walk In Action (FIRE Carrier Fundraiser)

Last Friday all staff and students were encouraged to wear the colours of the Aboriginal flag to school and bring a gold coin donation. Money raised was sent to the Opening the Doors Foundation. Thank you to our families for supporting this event. We raised $235 for the Opening the Doors Foundation.

Holy Family is a FIRE (Friends Igniting Reconciliation in Education) Carrier school.

The dream of the FIRE Carrier program is to promote respect, fairness, and inclusion for First Nations People in Education.

FIRE Carriers are students and staff who share a passion for learning about First Nations culture and history and are committed to sharing this knowledge, promoting Reconciliation within and beyond the school community. A FIRE Carrier promotes respect, fairness and inclusion for First Nations Peoples.

The Opening The Doors Foundation is a 24-year old First Nations led organisation supporting educational opportunities for First Nations children. It provides First Nations children from regional, remote and urban communities across Australia, with educational opportunities within Victorian non-government schools - enabling them to participate fully and equally in education, by supporting families to make their own choices about their children’s future for their entire education journey from foundation to Year 12. It is the only First Nations organisation that supports a child throughout their entire13-year educational journey.

Communication

Communication between school and home comes in many different forms but one of our major forms of communication is via email.

Please be mindful of the tone of emails. Our staff must be treated with respect at all times.

I can assure you that our staff have the best interests of all students at the centre of everything they do.

If you have a concern it may be 'best' to make a time to come and speak face to face with the class teacher rather than email.

As parents are aware, our school staff are very good at communicating with parents about concerns or information about our students.

As a school, our policy on returning emails is that emails are responded to within a 24 hour time frame and within the hours of 8.30am-4.30pm.

As some of you may be aware, that Fair Work Australia as of the 26th August 2024 will be introducing a new Act that gives employees the Right to Disconnect outside of their designated work hours. This is a great step forward to ensure the wellbeing and mental health of all workers in Australia.

This will apply to our school staff as well.

We know there are many times that parents of an evening email school staff due to many family and work commitments. With this new act, as a school we will be enforcing this with our staff, so we ask parents to support the school moving forward on when emails will be responded to.

Parents/carers can 'schedule' emails to arrive during the work hours of staff (8:30am-4:30pm). Emails are not to be sent to staff over the weekends, holidays or out of these hours.

Holy Family has a Code of Conduct (located on our website) that all parents and carers must abide by. If this does not occur then the enrolment of a student could be at risk.

Key elements of this policy are -

Book Week

The theme for Book Week in 2024 is 'Reading is Magic'. All students can dress up as a 'magic' figure or their favourite book character.

Everyone is invited to come along to our Parade on Monday 19th August at 9:15am.

Confirmation

Our Year 6 students are continuing their Confirmation preparation.

Last Wednesday evening Father Justel and our Year 5/6 staff joined the candidates and their families to explore the meaning of this sacrament.

Key events coming up for these candidates are -

Commitment Masses (5pm Saturday 16th or 8:30am/10am Sunday 17th August)
Confirmation Reflection Day (Thursday 22nd August)
Father Tony Kerin will celebrate the reception of the sacrament with our candidates on Friday 23rd August at 5pm.

Biggest Parent/Carer Community Event of 2024

Don't forget to purchase your tickets for our Trivia Night on Saturday 31st August . This event is a wonderful opportunity for the adults in our community to get together and have fun!

To join in the fun please purchase your tickets and arrive in summer/beach gear (sunhat, sunglasses, zinc, beach towel, ..)

You can purchase tickets using the following link https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1249222

You can donate prizes via the link below

https://volunteersignup.org/DW4XP

Father's Day Stall

On Friday 30th August our Parents and Friends Committee are holding a Father's Day Stall for all students to purchase a gift for their dad, uncle, grandpa or another significant male in their lives.

Please purchase a token for your child by 22nd August using CDF Pay. Proce point for gifts are $4 or $7.

School Closure Day

All staff will be involved in a Professional Learning Day on Friday 16th August. Students do not attend school on this day.

Our staff will continue their learning in the area of First Nations in order to implement this culture into our curriculum in a sensitive way. The day will be lead by Lisa Moloney (Opening the Doors Foundation).

Towards Reconciliation

Where are you on your reconciliation journey?

What is reconciliation?

Why is it important?

Background for reconciliation (language groups, terminology, Welcome and Acknowledgments, history of Aboriginal Victoria, significant dates, National and Victorian resources, etc)

Voice, Treaty, Truth in Victoria

Personal pledge for Reconciliation and Acknowledgement of Country

Including First Nations Perspectives in the Curriculum

First Nations Spirituality

Holy Family School FIRE Carrier Covenant

FIRE Carrier Program – background and resources

Covenant – three core values

2025 Intentions

I am beginning to plan for 2025 and need to know if your family is going to be at Holy Family next year.

Can you please notify me by 30th August if you are not returning to Holy Family as we have some children on a waitlist?

Carpark

Thank you for not parking in the church/staff carpark during drop off and pick up times. Your support ensures the safety of our staff and students.

Term 3 Dates

August

Thursday 8th - Mary MacKillop Feast Day (9:15am Mass)

Wednesday 14th - School Advisory Council Meeting (6pm)

Thursday 15th - Feast of the Assumption (9:15am and 12pm Masses)

Friday 16th - Bully No Way Day

Friday 16th - School Closure Day (Religious Education Focus)

Saturday 17th/Sunday 18th - Confirmation Commitment Masses

Monday 19th - Book Week (Magic) Parade at 9:15am

Thursday 22nd - Confirmation Reflection Day

Friday 23rd - Sacrament of Confirmation (5pm)

Monday 26th-Wednesday 28th - Year 5/6 Camp (Alexandra Adventure Resort)

Wednesday 28th - Parents and Friends Meeting (7pm)

Friday 30th - Father's Day Celebrations (2:20pm)

September

Sunday 1st - Happy Father's Day

Friday 6th - District Athletics

Thursday 19th/Friday 20th - Visual/Media Arts Expo

Friday 20th - Last day of Term 3 (1pm finish)

Enjoy the sunshine this weekend,

Mrs David (Principal)